Universal backs free music rival to iTunes — Universal Music, the world's largest music company, is backing a start-up that will allow consumers to download songs for free. It will rely on advertising for its revenues, offering a different business model from that of Apple Computer's popular iTunes music store.

Leaving Search Engine Watch — After ten years, I'm leaving Search Engine Watch and almost certainly leaving the Search Engine Strategies conference series as well. My contracts with their owners Incisive Media are expiring, and we've not been able to agree on new ones.

Wired Wiki — Attachments: — In an experiment in collaborative journalism, Wired News is putting reporter Ryan Singel at your service. — This wiki began as an unedited 1,059 word article on the wiki phenomenon, exactly as Ryan filed it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it …

Revamped AOL unveils Web-based music store —Text+NEW YORK (Reuters) - AOL on Tuesday unveiled a revamped music product with a Web-based store and subscription service offering audio and video streaming, programmed radio and downloads that can be transferred to compatible digital media players.

Internet, TV are no rivals: Google — The rise of the internet is as revolutionary as the invention of the printing press, a senior Google Inc. executive said on Saturday - but old media like television should not fear it. — Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience …

Times Withholds Web Article in Britain — If Web readers in Britain were intrigued by the headline "Details Emerge in British Terror Case," which sat on top of The New York Times's home page much of yesterday, they would have been disappointed with a click.

Welcome to the public beta for Qna.live.com! — It's with great pleasure, a lot of late nights, and barrels of caffeine, that our team launches the public Windows Live QnA beta. — For all you thousands of beta testers who took a chance on us, nagged us, mocked us, and made us better - we thank you.

Can the PS3 Save Sony … Never try to introduce the same product twice. That was the lesson from the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May. A year earlier, at E3 2005 in Los Angeles, Sony had wowed the videogame industry with demonstrations of the upcoming PlayStation 3's unprecedented graphical muscle.

Microsoft already on their way to patching FairUse4WM — Leave it to the Hawthorne Effect, right? It's been three days since we spilled the beans about the PlaysForSure-stripping FairUse4WM app, and already Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division is issuing notices to its PlaysForSure licensees regarding patching up the problem.

Singapore: One nation under Wi-Fi — By the end of the year, it will be possible to roam almost anywhere in Singapore and get a wireless signal. — As part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 program, the island nation will be able to boast of countrywide Wi-Fi coverage in a few months …